Warfare Refurbished: Micro-Drones Pave The Way To Future

A 'small' revolution may well be on its way, which can substantially change the way we consider warfare. Microdrones, or Micro Aerial vehicles (MAVs) have been developed with extraordinary navigation skills and real-time mapping  potential, and may soon be employed for missions that are hard to undertake otherwise. With this, soldiers can glance over hills, within buildings and even inspect obscure objects without encountering any risks. The difference between these micro-drones and their larger counterparts is that while the larger drones can fly-on autonomously for hours together, the micro-drones have to rely on GPS to point them their location and are maneuvered by humans.

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In a latest development, Roland Brockers at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, along with his team of researchers has come up with an MAV that employs a camera aiming at the ground to steer and detect landing points, and it can also detect people and other objects. Best part is, it can even travel through areas where GPS and human supervision is not available. The operator initially has to input just two things - the initial location of the drone and its objective. Rest all is carried out by the drone itself using 3D maps of the surroundings.

With these capabilities being present in the MAV, one can be sure that the other smaller aerial vehicles shall be upgraded as well.

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